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Post by Don Cuevas on Jan 8, 2013 19:15:42 GMT
Why would anyone bother with a forum so tightly moderated? Nostalgia? I don't get it. I detest overmoderated sites where everyone is tiptoeing around on eggshells, the only moderators who'll play by those rules are sociopaths and plain old nut cases. Fuck that shit Some months back, I joined an multinational Expat Forum, in order to participate in discussions on expat life in Mexico. I was not allowed to initiate a topic until I had replied to 5 posts. I was not allowed to put URLs in my posts until I had past a certain qualifying amount of posts. Later, after I passed the qualifying hurdles, I had an innocuous post deleted, reason: "Rule # 6" I looked up Rule # 6 in the Rules Page (rather extensive, at that.) I found that my offense had been to post in Spanish, because English is the official language of the forum. ¿WTF? This is a Mexico forum? Needless to say, I was pi55ed orf,and rarely if ever post on that forum. (besides, there are too many long winded blowhards among the good posters there.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2013 19:22:44 GMT
Funnily enough, it was forbidden to have a Proboards forum in a language other than English until a few years ago.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 8, 2013 19:50:05 GMT
Later, after I passed the qualifying hurdles, I had an innocuous post deleted I have always suspected that the letter C in Don Cuevas is code for "cañon suelto". ;D
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2013 23:22:38 GMT
I may have just understood one of the pitfalls of trying to post on the TT. I was replying at length to a totally normal question in a totally normal manner, but I got a "you have attempted to post something that is not acceptable" message. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what was not acceptable, but when I looked at "preview" I saw that I had a triple spaced line between paragraphs. I removed the extra blank line, and the post was accepted. (I do remember one jerk -- was it Ducky? -- who would post 200 blank lines over and over again on the old TT, but jeez -- just one line too many gets you a rejection?)
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Post by waterhazardjack on Jan 9, 2013 1:45:00 GMT
"cheers jack, not familiar with the Dutch public transport, but consider looking into the Dagkart offer by NS and Blokker, too - though obviously you'll either need a forwarding address in the Netherlands or you'll have to track down a Blokker once you're over there, dunno whether that's worth the hassle. as you'll know, there's a (costlier) Terravision bus Eindhoven-Amsterdam as well. regards nautiker p.s. I thought you'd be playing in Eindhoven?" Cheers, Nautiker, and good to see you here! My plans have jumping all over the place hence the last minute query but I'm working in Weert (between Eindhoven and Roermond) on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then I have free time. I know I never replied to your last message on TT and now can't access any of them...my plan was to catch up on all correspondence over the Xmas holiday but you know what happened... Looks like I'm on way out of there...the Dutch query I posted was the only one they've accepted from me since the return...I wrote them an 'open letter' about the whole thing when it re-launched (well, sort of) and it never appeared...ditto several of my other comments... So in future I'll just revert to reading it for my own travels and dropping in the odd comment if I can be bothered... There's an old business saying that if you're not paying for product then there's a fair chance that you are the product!...and in this case, a product that is not valued or appreciated... The BBC have recently been exposed as tolerating evil and illegal acts on their premises over several years, facilitating tax avoidance and libelling a well-known peer. The response?...to close down and clean out the travel forum, of course! Pathetic...
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Post by nautiker on Jan 9, 2013 7:22:10 GMT
hi jack,
no worry about that old message, it was only chatter anyway - maybe we could ask to have a racing branch installed here at anyport? that might be fun...
unfortunately, I won't be able to make it this weekend (family business), yet am honestly looking forward to another occasion in the future!
regards
nautiker
@kerouac, thanks for the hint with the preview (usually never use that) - will give it a try. btw, your Paris thread catches on pretty well :-)
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Post by nautiker on Jan 9, 2013 7:49:47 GMT
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Post by bjd on Jan 9, 2013 8:39:28 GMT
Nautiker, you link just led me to the W Europe page in general. So I started reading through and find some woman's link to accommodation in Montpellier. They are moderating comments on local weather, but let through spam!
Just found a second post by the same woman with the same link, so I reported it to the mods, telling them they should moderate for spam and not comments on the weather. And that they are destroying TT.
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Post by rikita on Jan 9, 2013 8:40:51 GMT
hehe... that is kind of funny... one would hope people are smart enough not to google that school then...
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Post by nautiker on Jan 9, 2013 8:53:59 GMT
funny, bjd, the link works fine for me: it's about a guy/gal that asks for kite surfing schools on Mallorca just to recommend a very good place with a friendly atmosphere...
actually, I cannot fathom why I should report any of these threads. imo it was fine when we checked the branch, but now that they have paid staff to do the job (and bother the posters), why should I care?
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Post by bjd on Jan 9, 2013 9:52:59 GMT
This time it worked.
I agree with you about reporting/not reporting threads, but I do get annoyed that they have totally screwed up the site for nothing yet are incapable of recognizing spam when they see it.
They probably haven't hired anyone new and the ones working there are slow readers.
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Post by anshjain97 on Jan 9, 2013 11:53:24 GMT
Agree, Nautiker #159.
They are over-moderating the bona fide posts and if they can't take of the posts which actually need moderating, well, I wouldn't like to pitch in and help them.
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Post by bjd on Jan 9, 2013 17:54:27 GMT
Well -- I just posted on TT and it went up right away -- no delay. However, I also saw that I "lost" over 2,000 posts. I wonder if those were the snarky ones.
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Post by onlymark on Jan 9, 2013 18:35:15 GMT
I'm wondering if the lost posts are posts made on boards that are not yet in action.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2013 18:47:02 GMT
Well -- I just posted on TT and it went up right away -- no delay. My posts are still suffering from a (brief) moderation delay.
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Post by waterhazardjack on Jan 10, 2013 4:56:47 GMT
Well -- I just posted on TT and it went up right away -- no delay. However, I also saw that I "lost" over 2,000 posts. I wonder if those were the snarky ones. bjd, it seems that some do and some don't...and, as you noticed, our posting totals have been 'decimated' once again...
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Post by bjd on Jan 10, 2013 8:18:42 GMT
That was for the first time for me -- the couple of previous posts I made were delayed. I admit I haven't posted much -- I just haven't been inspired.
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Post by nautiker on Jan 10, 2013 8:49:07 GMT
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Post by anshjain97 on Jan 10, 2013 11:56:06 GMT
My "new" post count was 4000 or so when TT reopened last week- today it has become 1600.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2013 15:30:53 GMT
Sleepy time for the LP mods -- I just replied to 6 questions in a row and none of my posts has appeared yet.
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Post by nautiker on Jan 10, 2013 21:17:53 GMT
I noticed the delay between posting and appearance can easily exceed 90mins, however it seems to depend on the shift as well... given they're back online for full five days now, I can see very little progress. another oddity: www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2288113though I never take part, I've never minded surveys very much - they were a regular and harmless occurence on the late TT (that's why I replied). yet I wonder how comes -if they're deemed that inappropriate- OP made it past the mods? there've been so many blunders already, what's the point in preemptive moderation?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2013 21:20:56 GMT
I think they are losing control of the situation -- but what will they do when they accept that reality?
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Post by bjd on Jan 11, 2013 8:29:52 GMT
I don't see how they will ever re-open TT as it was if they want to moderate pre-emptively. Just a few destination boards right now and they can't keep up. And I don't imagine the BBC is going to hire a bunch of new mods.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jan 11, 2013 8:54:01 GMT
Later, after I passed the qualifying hurdles, I had an innocuous post deleted I have always suspected that the letter C in Don Cuevas is code for "cañon suelto". ;D Perhaps. But more likely "afuera de la línea"; ie. an independent mind. Separately; if more TT people discover APIAS you, the staff will have your hands full. Congratulations on having such a good forum. I love the infinite edits allowed, and, of course, the photo and video embedding. Having different "skins" available is nice, but I rarely change once I find a comfortable one.
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Post by nautiker on Jan 11, 2013 10:19:58 GMT
I dropped by on the TT 'Community FAQ' thread today and wanted to mention that users would probably be less uptight if they could spot progress and/or LP would bother to be more transparent about the plans concerning the immediate future, e.g. whether they're currently intensively working on returning all branches with a big bang soon, whether there's any sort of timescale at all etc. - thus the hamstrung situation might be more understandable.
I further remarked on the inconsistent moderation (e.g. there is still a rather offensive remark on WE unedited today) - all in a civilised manner, yet in spite of numerous critical posts by others (sometimes giving open appeals to move to TA etc.), my post never made it. seems others (e.g. artemis) are having similar experiences, raki_man has actually bid farewell (though I hope he just stays in standby)...
so far I've been thinking that it would be the thing to keep up posting on LP throughout the turmoil, yet I'm no longer that convinced.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2013 11:31:19 GMT
I discovered another problem caused by moderation yesterday -- when several people answer the same question with the same information simply because the first replies have not appeared yet.
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Post by nautiker on Jan 11, 2013 12:03:12 GMT
indeed, and though I thought I had worked the big scheme out (more delays = more contributions), yesterday the mods decided to leave a reply of mine in limbo, as they obviously deemed there were reasonably similar responses already queuing ahead of mine. not tragic, yet not very courteous either - I refrain from 'easy' topics for now.
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Post by anshjain97 on Jan 11, 2013 13:34:51 GMT
Post counts are somehow dropping further. What's going on??
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2013 13:59:14 GMT
Southeast Asia mainland and Thailand branches are back -- they probably went over all that with a magnifying glass.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jan 11, 2013 16:52:01 GMT
Southeast Asia mainland and Thailand branches are back -- they probably went over all that with a magnifying glass. Looking between the Thais, I conjecture. (couldn't pass up a chance to write that. )
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